My entire life had been built on a single foundational belief: that no one was coming.

It was not self-pity; it was simply the organizing fact of my existence, confirmed a thousand times over.

No one came to the group homes.

No one came to the hearings.

When a placement ended, no one fought to keep me.

I had constructed an entire self around that fact — a self that needed nothing, expected nothing, asked for nothing, because to need or expect or ask was to set yourself up for the specific devastation of watching no one arrive.